Pirate N’Zoth Rogue

Another Hearthstone post! After a bunch of testing, I have finally settled upon a fun deck that works decently in this meta. It’s nothing particularly groundbreaking, though.

2 Backstab
2 Preparation
2 Journey Below
1 Patches the Pirate
2 Small-Time Buccaneer
2 Swashburglar
1 Bloodmage Thalnos
2 Eviscerate
2 Sap
2 Undercity Huckster
1 Edwin VanCleef
2 Fan of Knives
2 SI:7 Agent
2 Tomb Pillager
2 Azure Drake
2 Gadgetzan Auctioneer
1 N’Zoth, the Corruptor

As you can see it’s the N’Zoth Miracle Rogue deck that I played in the past two metas updated for Gadgetzan. The key changes are in adding the 5 card Pirate core with Patches that so many decks are running nowadays. It gives the deck an amazing early game which is something that Rogue has never had in the past. It also makes cards like Shiv and Shadow Strike unnecessary since you can just use your pirates to keep your opponent’s board clear early on.

So this is a value based deck that runs some of the Miracle Rogue cards as a draw engine. We can play the value game against control decks and since we’re Rogue, we easily out tempo them as well. So we have a good matchup against every control deck in the game. Unfortunately even with the amazing Pirate early game, the deck still has the usual Rogue problem of being weak to aggro. Even standard Miracle Rogue fares better against aggro since it can race them with Leeroy and Cold Bloods. This N’Zoth Rogue deck has much less reach so it can’t really deal with decks that run lots of charge minions. I vividly remember a recent game I played against a Pirate Warrior where I went first and had a Turn 1 Pirate opener. I was winning the entire game and at one point even had two unanswered Tomb Pillagers on board. In the end I still lost because there was no way of stopping all the direct face damage. I also did end up getting bursted for 16 damage on the final turn from an empty board.

The main strength of this deck over standard Miracle is in the matchup against Reno decks, especially Reno Mage. While standard Miracle is supposed to be favored against them all, Reno Mage can cause problems. The Mage spell removal suite lines up quite well against Rogue minions, and Flamestrike is extra strong since there are no minions in the standard Miracle deck that are above 4 health(other than Edwin). Additionally, Reno Mage has access to the Ice Block + Reno combo. If both of those cards are drawn early, they essentially provide ~60 points of healing for the Mage, so Miracle Rogue literally does not have enough damage in the deck to finish the game. So N’Zoth Rogue is better here since the deck aims to win through value instead of burst damage. We can generate a steady stream of threats and then reload with N’Zoth if they are all dealt with.

From a competitive standpoint, this deck is overall weaker than the standard version of Miracle Rogue. But it is a lot of fun to play and is worth a shot if you want to try something different. One of the things that I like the most about N’Zoth Rogue is that every game is a different experience. Between the burgles and the Discovers off Journey Below, you are literally playing with a different set of cards in every match. The deck has 4 burgle effects, and potentially more if the game lasts long enough for a N’Zoth turn.

I really wanted to make Jade Rogue work but I am convinced that it will never be good in this meta. Even after the doom and gloom in my previous post, I still kept testing it. I had some mild success with Jade Pirates, but it was still too slow and less consistent than what I found here. But this deck ends up being a nice compromise because there is a high chance of discovering an Aya Blackpaw off of Journey Below! So we can play the Jade Rogue game anyways if we feel like it.

Recent card game stuff

The Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion has been out for a few weeks now, and I have been having a lot of fun with it. Karazhan was super disappointing but this expansion introduced a lot of cool cards and even a new mechanic. The support for the Reno decks, especially Priest and Mage, is by far my favorite addition from Gadgetzan. The power level of the cards in Gadgetzan is quite high, which is great because of how much the meta has changed for it. But it has made it a lot harder to get into for new players or people with limited collections. A lot of old decks cannot compete anymore and you need a decent amount of the high rarity Gadgetzan cards to have a chance.

So I played Jade Rogue exclusively for the first 2 weeks of the expansion and was totally disappointed by it. The deck is a lot of fun but it is depressingly inconsistent. I experimented a ton with its construction, going with pure Jade and Deathrattles along with hybrid Jade Miracle. At this point I am still not sure which one is better but Jade Miracle is more true to the spirit of the class(imo) so I favor it. The issue with the deck is that it is even slower than standard N’Zoth Rogue. It plays similarly, in that it is a value based deck that can get great tempo swings with the Miracle Rogue package. But it takes a while for the Jade Golem train to get started. The meta has also gotten faster and so many decks run burst damage now. So even non-aggro decks can sometimes just ignore your growing Jade army and smash your face. I pretty much had a sub 50% winrate against everything. You know that a Rogue deck is bad when it can’t even beat Priest and Druid consistently. The Jade packages in Shaman and Druid are just so much better. Not only that, but they got 3 Jade cards while for some reason Rogue only gets 2. Where is the justice?

The funny part is that Rogue is actually in a very good spot right now. Miracle Rogue is quite strong in the current meta. It’s just that the other Rogue decks can’t compete anymore. And Miracle Rogue is basically the same deck as before, just with some of the spells swapped out for the pirates package to improve its early game. This mostly has to do with the fact that the majority of the Gadgetzan class cards for Rogue are total garbage. You know it’s bad when the best card they got from the expansion was a coin. Going through them one by one:

• Jade Shuriken – A decent card, but I feel like the combo requirement could have been omitted. 2 damage for 2 mana is already below the power curve, so even if it unconditionally summoned a Jade Golem it wouldn’t be broken.
• Jade Swarmer – Definitely the weakest Jade Card in the entire set. Very slow, the only reason it is somewhat passable in Rogue is because you can follow it up with Unearthed Raptor.
• Shadow Rager – A total joke of a card. There’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said, but what irritates me the most about this card is that it could have been good if it had Ice Rager stats. There is absolutely no reason for it to be a 5/1. You might argue that it would be wrong to powercreep an existing card, but Ice Rager was already a powercrept version of Magma Rager. And class cards in general should be stronger than neutral cards. Just look at Cult Sorcerer and Unearthed Raptor. If Shadow Rager was a 5/2, I would actually play it in a stealth themed deck. But the way it is now, it dies for free to all the AoE that is run in the meta.
• Counterfeit Coin – Obviously a great card, just doesn’t add anything new to the Rogue arsenal
• Gadgetzan Ferryman – Basically a weaker version of Brewmaster, which is a card that already sees 0 play in the constructed meta. The combo requirement seems super arbitrary. I feel like this card would have been a lot more reasonable if you were allowed to bounce anything on combo, not just friendly minions.
• Shadow Sensei – Stats are below the curve for a 4 drop, but it is a good card for a stealth themed deck. The problem is that Stealth Rogue sucks right now, but this card might be good in the future if the archetype gets more support.
• Lotus Assassin – Pretty much a better version of Stranglethorn Tiger, this card is actually quite good. The issues are that it pushes Stealth Rogue which is total garbage at the moment, and that it promotes a playstyle that is far too slow for the current meta. Might be good in the future
• Luckydo Buccaneer – This card could have been amazing if Rogue had good weapon support, but with Blade Flurry dead, running Deadly Poison ends up being a liability in the current meta.
• Shaku, the Collector – A total joke of a legendary. It does push the Burgle and Stealth themes of Rogue, and does curve nicely into Shadow Sensei. But the stats are so poor for a 3 drop. It is almost a worse version of Undercity Huckster. I feel like this could have been playable as a 3/3.

But yeah, new expansion is great, just disappointed with the Rogue class cards. The power level has been raised so much in this expansion that Rogue has to be Pirate Miracle to compete. I kind of miss the times when I could do decently with N’Zoth and Burgle Rogue.

Shadowverse has been great as usual. There is a new expansion coming at the end of this month. Been playing this game a lot more than Hearthstone for the past few months. It has really made me appreciate just how generous Cygames is. I started in July(so about 6 months now) and have spent absolutely no money, and at this moment have pretty much everything. I don’t really have all the cards, but I have enough stuff unpacked and enough crafting material to make everything. The difference to Hearthstone is like night and day, where I have been playing that game for a little over a year and still do not have anything close to a complete collection. It’s not too bad since I only care about 4 classes(Rogue, Druid, Mage, Priest). But it’s not like SV where I can literally play everything.